Gallipoli

“I suddenly realise that the ambition of my life
has been - since I was two - to go on a military
expedition against Constantinople."

Rupert Brooke, 1915

When Rupert Brooke died on 23rd April 1915, he was part of a massive allied force dedicated to the seizing of the Dardenelles straits leading into Turkey with the aim of opening up a route to the black sea.

Unfortunately for the allies, having courted the Turkish leadership previous to the outbreak of war and fashioning most of Turkey’s forces in its own image, the German high command wasn’t about to give up easily.

Thus, only two days after Brooke’s death, a tortuous and disastrous battle for the control of the gateway into Turkey began.

This page offers a very brief insight into Brooke’s anticipated role in the events. For more detailed information about the political situation of the time and about the whole of the Gallipoli campaign, I highly recommend the Gallipoli Now and Then site, which is very comprehensive.

The "Helles Hand"

Sketch of the Helles peninsula. Lt.-Col. J. H. Patterson, leader of the Zion Mule Corps. 1915

The above sketch shows the immense task that faced the allies on the 25th April 1915. Not only was the entrance to the Dardenelles very narrow and surrounded by rocky cliffs ascending to the easily-defendable heights of Achi-Baba, but there were also two forts at Kum Kale and Sedd-el-Bahr spanned by a minefield that altogether formed an impregnable barrier into the narrows themselves. A key mistake was made by the allies in not pressing home an advantage gained over these under-defended forts in February, which were subsequently strengthened by the German-backed Turks in preparation for the allies’ eventual main assault.

Brooke's Role?

Had Rupert Brooke lived, it is possible that he would have either been involved in the feint attack by the Royal Naval Division in the north towards Bulair on the morning of the 25th April, and/or the Hood Battalion’s landings on ‘V’ beach, between the 26th April and 28th April 1915.

If he had been involved, he may have taken some small comfort from the poetic manner in which those landings were conducted, namely in the form of the ‘trojan horse’ of the collier ship The River Clyde which, cut with crude landing doors and packed to the sides with troops, was rammed into the shore until the fort eventually fell in the late evening of the 25th, at a great loss of life.

The River Clyde,

actual photograph from 25th April 1915, 2 days after Brooke's death